Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Wii U still not a hit with gamers [ C0m13x ]

Nintendo is suffering as sales of its Wii U game console continue to be hit by a shift to gaming on smartphones and tablets.

The video game maker behind Pokemon and Super Mario made a loss in the latest quarter of £50 million, which virtually wiped out a profit from the previous one.

Wii U sales for the quarter nearly doubled to 300,000 from 160,000 in the previous three months, but that is still far short of the company’s goal of nine million units for the fiscal year ending next March.

The company’s business has been shaken in recent years as more people play games on their smartphone and tablets.

So far Nintendo has resisted offering its games on those platforms, but analysts say continued poor performance could force a change in strategy.

The company cut the price of the Wii U console last month.

Nintendo said: “The Wii U hardware still has a negative impact on Nintendo’s profits owing mainly to its markdown in the United States and Europe.”

Sales are likely to pick up over the year-end holiday season, but the Wii U will face competition from Sony’s new PlayStation 4, due out next month, and Microsoft’s coming Xbox One.